


The Crystal

by aflyingcontradiction



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:24:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflyingcontradiction/pseuds/aflyingcontradiction
Summary: Dio and Zil know they have been chosen. They know they have to enter the cave, find the crystal and restore the world. They know their task may well kill them. But what neither of the young women knows is that the other exists. What happens when two chosen ones realise their fate is not as lonely as they had thought?Inspired by the image prompt http://putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com/post/109994835907/merkaba-by-andrius-matijosius





	The Crystal

“Princess, it is time.”

Dio stood up from her throne and smoothed down the red ceremonial robes. She followed the priests out of the room so gracefully any onlooker may have thought she was gliding. 

They had only told her about this a day ago. She had been surprised, of course. 

Knowing that you were the youngest descendant of a line of chosen ones was one thing, actually being called upon to do that duty was something else entirely. The last woman to be called into the cave had been her great-grandmother! How could Dio or anyone else have expected the priests’ oracles to call upon her, of all people? 

And yes, of course Dio was scared, but she had been trained her whole life to show composure, as a princess should. Not a single one of the onlookers could have guessed that she wanted nothing more than to rip the painfully long pins out of her elaborate ceremonial hairstyle and run to her bedroom crying - and she intended to keep it that way. Even if the horrors that awaited her in the cave of the crystal would sap her energy and destroy her sanity. A princess showed composure.

\-----------------------------------------------

“Are you kidding me, Zil? If I tell Wise Woman Mar you’re still not dressed, she’ll throw me headfirst into the nearest dung heap and then she’ll stomp in here and drag you to the cave naked as the day you were born!”

“Not very calm and compassionate for a wise woman, is she?”

“And you’re not very dignified for a chosen one, are you? Standing here stark naked, showing everyone your ass.”

Zil rolled her eyes at her little brother: “Nobody in the room but you and nobody forced you to come bursting in without knocking!”

“As your only brother it falls upon me to get you ready for the ceremony, as Wise Woman Mar kindly reminded me just now. So sweet Mother of Life, get your clothes on already.”

“These pants are way too long. They drag on the floor. I can’t run in them. I can’t climb in them!”

“You’re not supposed to run and climb. You’re supposed to stride with dignity and do your duty before the Mother of Life. At this rate, the world’s going to end before you ever enter the cave, you know!”

“I know, I know, just ... give me a moment.”

Lo put his hand on Zil’s shoulder: “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“A bit. I don’t really know what I’m doing. If it was a matter of slaying some beast or running a race or - sweet Mother of Life - something I could touch. I don’t know if I’m worthy. I don’t even know what being worthy means!” Zil smiled bitterly. “Who decided it was a good idea to choose me of all people?”

“The Mother of Life sees into the very bottom of our hearts.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, but if I know anything at all it’s that at the very bottom of my heart I’m a bumbling fool, so maybe she’s going a bit blind in her old age...”

“ZIL!” Lo chucked a pillow at her head. “Shame on you! Wise Woman Mar would smack you silly!”

“But you won’t tell her.”

“Of course I won’t. Now do me a favour and...” Lo gestured at the blue ceremonial costume. Zil sighed and finally slipped into the unfamiliar cloth.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio stared into the crackling fire in front of her. The priests surrounding her were reciting the oracle chant in low voices. What use was that now? They had already seen her Fate, all the chanting in the world was not going to change that.

Would she see her parents again? They said some of the chosen ones had never left the cave after completing their task. Her father had not even said good-bye; he had been much too busy. Her mother had accompanied her on her journey to the mountains at the end of the world. She had hugged and kissed her good-bye, but she had not left the carriage. She did not want to disturb the priests.

Maybe Dio would make it out. Her great-grandmother had. But they said had never recovered from the experience and had fallen into deep melancholy that had stayed with her the rest of her life.

The priests had finished their part of the ritual. The high priest in his gold-embroidered red robes approached Dio. Dio bowed her head and felt the priest place his hand softly on the top of the tower of hair on her head.

“Princess, are you ready to do your duty to protect this world, no matter the cost?”

“Yes, I am ready.”

Dio was not ready in the least, but the priest was not expecting an honest answer. This was a ritual and rituals were as unchangeable as Fate.

“We lay our lives in your hands. May Fate be kind to you.”

The priest lifted his hands and Dio her head. She stared at the dark entrance of the cave. They had told her she would have to walk for at least a day to find the crystal. The sunlight barely seemed to enter the cave at all. She would be in complete darkness within hours, maybe less. Would this be the last time she saw the sun?

“Princess.” The high priest was giving her a stern look.

Dio grabbed her bag of provisions with one hand and the torch the priests had lit for her with the other and entered the entrance of the cave.

\-----------------------------------------------

“The sun’s almost gone, we need to hurry,” Mar shouted as she crashed through the forest at top speed with Zil desperately trying to keep up.

“Easy for you ... to ... say,” Zil panted in response, rubbing her aching knee. She had never been particularly clumsy before. In fact, her prowess at hunting, at running, at climbing trees and flitting through the forest unseen was legendary among her friends. But then she had never had to navigate the forest in overly long trousers that dragged on the floor and made her trip every second step. Add to that the giant backpack of dried meats, bread and waterskins and she had no chance of catching up with Mar unless the Mother of Life herself intervened on her behalf.

Mar was wearing her usual short, brown tunic and was, of course, impatient to reach the cave of the crystal.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing at all, Wise Woman Mar, I’m on my way.”

By the time they had made their way out of the forest and reached the mountain cave, the sun had started to set. Zil and Mar collected dry wood and lit a fire just outside the cave entrance. Mar pulled a bag of herbs out of her bag.

“Ready, Zil?”

“To be honest, no.”

“But you’re not going to falter.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Mar sighed. “That’s all we can ask.”

She tossed a hand of herbs into the tiny fire and watched as they went up in smoke. Then she grabbed Zil’s hand. Zil was surprised to find Mar’s hand as cold and clammy as her own.

“Let us pray to the Mother of Life for your safety.”

Zil bowed her head and let Mar’s prayer wash over her: “Sacred Mother of Life, protect your child while she carries out your task. We beg of you, do not let harm befall her and do not let her falter on her path. Allow her to prove herself and our people worthy of your mercy and knowledge. This we ask of you from the bottom of our hearts.”

“This we ask of you from the bottom of our hearts,” repeated Zil in a low voice.

Zil tried to take a deep breath to steel herself, but it was immediately knocked out of her when Mar threw her arms around her: “Please be careful in there. If you don’t make it back...”

Zil looked down at the smaller woman’s head in surprise. Either the unsettling hallucinations were starting much earlier than she had expected or Mar’s voice was actually trembling.

“I’ll be careful. Just ... promise you’ll watch Lo for me while I’m gone. He’s never been all alone before.”

Mar drew back from the hug and gave Zil a serious look. “He won’t be alone, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Zil grabbed her torch, looked back at the dark silhouette of the forest one final time and stepped into the cave.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio had walked for hours in complete silence, accompanied only by the sound of her steps and the gentle drip-drip-drip of water somewhere deep inside the cave echoing off the walls. Her feet were starting to ache. She had never had to walk this far in her life. And still, there was no sign of the crystal. She had not expected to reach it this soon, but she had hoped that there would at least be some way to tell if she was going the right way. She felt parched and her stomach was rumbling, but her torch was burning dangerously low and she had no idea how long she would have to keep going. Could she even afford to take a break to eat and drink and rest for a moment?

As she was considering this, her foot caught on a large rock in her path. She stumbled and fell. Her torch slid along the ground and went out somewhere in the distance. Now she was in complete darkness.

Slowly she felt her way to the cave wall. But when she looked up, she no longer knew which way was which. She could not even make out the shape of her own hands in the darkness. Tears started to well up in her eyes. How was she going to complete her task now? She was going to starve in here and the crystal would break and doom the world.

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil took another torch from her bag and lit it. She had no idea how long she had been in this cave. Telling time without the aid of the sun was beyond her. But she had been forced to rest several times and usually she did not run out of stamina quickly, so the centre of the cave was probably nearby.

The silence was unnerving, though. She had been moving as quietly as possible, just in case something incomprehensibly horrible was waiting in the dark to pounce on her, but nothing had happened so far.

Zil took a deep breath and shouted into the void: “Is anyone here?”

The only response she got was her voice echoing in the darkness. Zil smiled. If anything was lurking here, it would have made some kind of noise, for sure. Maybe all this talk about horrors inside the cave was just a fairy tale to stop people from venturing into the cave and getting lost or damaging the holy crystal. Zil started singing, first quietly to herself and then louder and louder. She went through a few children’s songs about birds and dances and friendship. The sound of her voice bouncing back and forth between the cave walls made Zil laugh. It sounded like a whole choir of Zils.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio had taken a sip of water, then curled up by the cave wall to sleep for a while. Maybe she would find a way out of her miserable situation once her head was a little clearer. So when she heard voices in the tunnel, chanting in a strange, unfamiliar language, at first she thought she was still asleep and dreaming. But it took her no more than a second to awake with a start and realise she was not.

The songs were beautiful and a little eerie. She had never heard a voice quite that soft. It reminded her of the stories her maids and her mother had told her as a child, about sirens, softly beckoning sailors to their doom. Maybe these voice, too, were leading her to her doom, but doom or not, they seemed to be coming from deeper inside the cave. So if she wanted to find the crystal in the centre of the cave, there was only one way to go.

Dio grabbed her bag and slowly crawled forward. She did not dare stand for fear she would fall again and this time lose her provisions as well.

It was hard to figure out what direction to crawl in, the voices seemed to be echoing from every corner of the cave, but if Dio listened closely, she could hear where they were loudest.

For a moment she considered calling out for help, but then rejected the thought. What if these voices were the horrors that she had been warned about?  
A moment later, the decision was taken out of her hands, when she put them down on the cave floor and something sharp dug its way into her flesh.

\-----------------------------------------------

A horrible shrill scream echoed through the cave and made Zil stop in her tracks. Before she even knew what she was doing, her dagger was in her hand. Now she was glad she hadn’t listened to Mar when the wise woman had told her not to take weapons into a holy place. Holy place or not, she didn’t want to be defenceless against whatever had just made that noise. Though, maybe it was something that a simple dagger couldn’t hurt. Maybe it wasn’t even a creature made of flesh and blood.

Carefully, step by step, Zil crept forward. Then, suddenly, she saw a light in the distance. It did not flicker like the light from a torch, but it did not look like sunlight either. It was altogether different from anything she had ever seen before. Zil started to run.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio cursed silently to herself. The sharp object in her hand felt like nothing more than an unusually spiky rock. It hurt to pull it out, but it felt like she was barely even bleeding. The siren song had stopped, though, and she had no idea where to go now. She crawled slowly ahead, taking special care to place her aching hands on safe ground.

Then, suddenly, the darkness lifted. There was a light somewhere in the distance. Dio let out a small gasp. She jumped up and stumbled toward the light.

In no time at all, the cave was lit brightly enough for Dio to make out scrawled symbols on the black walls in red and yellow paint. But they looked like no script Dio had ever been taught to read. She had been taught the entire history of the common script with all its many stages. The priests had even taught her to read their own, secret script that was used for only the holiest of books. This looked nothing like any of those. What on earth was this?

She continued on, dragging her finger along the wall to make sure she did not miss anything, but the swirls just would not make sense, no matter how hard she tried.

All the while, the light surrounding her kept getting brighter and brighter until she found herself at a ledge. Looking down, she saw that she had finally reached her destination. The crystal down below had to be taller than the tallest man she had ever seen. She could not quite make out the colour of the light that came from inside it, illuminating the chamber. One moment it seemed a deep blue, she blinked and when she opened her eyes, it was red as blood. Yet no matter how long she stared, how much she tried to keep her eyes wide open, she could not tell when the light changed.

Fascinated by the light that seemed to be ever-changing, yet always the same, Dio stood transfixed. Then she noticed the shadow moving in the light.

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil burst into the chamber. After so long in the darkness with only the light of a torch, she was so overwhelmed by the bright beauty of the crystal that she almost started to laugh. It was hard to believe that there wasn’t a hole in the ceiling of the cave letting the sun in, but it seemed all the light really was coming from the giant transparent rock in the centre of the cave. It was amazing! Zil wished she could show Lo all of this. How come everyone was not allowed in here anyway? Why all the talk of horrors? So far she hadn’t seen anything dangerous in here at all. Just darkness and beauty.

Slowly, her eyes and mouth wide open in awe, Zil approached the crystal. So this was the place where the world was being held together at its seams? This was the place where it would crack open, if she did not prove herself worthy? Mar had said she would find out what to do when she reached the crystal, but so far Zil had no clue. She was standing only steps away from the crystal now. It was filling the chamber with its strange light, purple, blue, red, without ever changing. It was confusing. Was she supposed to touch it?

Zil reached out her hand. But the moment her fingers made contact with the cold surface of the crystal, she was thrown backwards by some invisible force. She landed on her back with a thump.

Gasping for breath, she looked up at the crystal. It looked just like it had a moment ago: Harmless, strange and beautiful. But past the crystal in a tunnel on the opposite side of the chamber, something was moving. Zil watched in awe as a red spectre with curly black horns glided gracefully down from a ledge. It seemed to float to the ground, then slowly came toward her. Mother of Life! Where had her dagger gone, now that she needed it? The fall had knocked it out of her hand, but she couldn’t see it anywhere around her and the spectre kept approaching.

Zil scrambled to her feet and shouted: “Stay away from me! Whatever you are! Stay away!”

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio stared in horror at the wailing ghost – for what else could the apparition be? It was pale, hairless, its face was contorted with anger but the words it was spitting, though angry, sounded oddly soft. Dio immediately recognised the siren call she had heard in the darkness.

She would have only too gladly abandoned her task right then and there, but she couldn’t go back now. The world would die without her aid and besides, she had no way back. She would get lost in the darkness of the cave and perish. So forward was the only way to go.

She tried to focus on the crystal, but that was becoming more and more difficult, as the ghost’s screams kept getting louder and louder. It was waving what looked like a dagger.

“Retreat, spirit! I won’t let you frighten me away from my task.”

\-----------------------------------------------

“Get away from the crystal, monster! I swear to the Mother of Life herself, if you don’t get away from it right now, I’ll ... I’ll ...”

The spectre whispered something incomprehensible in a harsh tongue. Zil tried to keep her dagger stable, but her hand was starting to shake.

“If you think you can scare me, you’re wrong,” she shouted at the strange demon, while desperately trying to keep her trembling under control. But the demon kept advancing. Was she supposed to protect the crystal? It didn’t feel like Mar said it would, like something she had been born to do, but it seemed the only way forward.  
Zil lunged, dagger in hand, aimed at the demon’s chest.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio had almost reached the crystal when the ghost stopped wailing, shot her a terrifying glare and pounced. Dio had not expected that. Had the priests not told her the greatest challenge would test her mind rather than her body? Had she been trying to escape using her mind, she might have been stabbed, but her body acted without her head’s input. She leapt for cover behind the crystal.  
Then something odd happened.

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil had expected the demon to fight back and injure her, maybe even kill her before she could complete her task, but what she had not expected was for the crystal to intervene. Before she knew what was happening to her, the hand that had held the dagger was being drawn to the crystal by an inescapable force.

A strange shiver went through her body. It was like the crystal was reaching deep inside her, rummaging for something. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, though. She felt strangely proud and relieved and happy as if the crystal was sucking all the tension of her journey out of her body. She looked up. It seemed the crystal did not discriminate. The horned spectre was stuck to it just as much as she was. Its warped silhouette was visible through the semi-transparent crystal.

“Huh, that’s odd,” said Zil out loud. 

Had it not been for the crystal’s calming power, she would have jumped out of her skin the very next moment when the spectre gave a loud gasp and shouted: “You speak in a human tongue, spirit?”

\-----------------------------------------------

“Wait, what, no, I ... I’m not a spirit ... and SWEET MOTHER OF LIFE, you can talk?”

Dio’s eyes widened. At first she had been sure the strange, beautiful force flowing from the crystal through her body was merely distorting her senses. But the pale apparition really had spoken to her. And what was even odder, it seemed just as confused as she did. Who had ever heard of a confused ghost?

“If you are not a ghost, then what are you?”

“Don’t you know? Aren’t you here to stop me?”

“Stop you? From doing what?”

“Proving myself to the crystal! Saving the world from being split at the seams!”

Dio gasped: “But that is what I am here to do.”

“A spectre out to save the world? Yeah, right.”

“I am not a spectre! I am a princess! I am chosen!”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s me and you’re just trying to mess with my head now. And what by the Mother of Life’s sweet grace is a ‘princess’?”

It was so absurd that Dio could not stop herself from laughing. She was surprised to hear the not-ghost on the other side of the crystal join in.

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil didn’t even know why she was laughing so hard. Maybe it was just relief. When she had entered the cave she had expected confusion, fear, pain and misery. She had found beauty, tranquillity – and yes, okay, confusion, too. Zil tried to have a closer look at the ‘princess’ but it was hard to make out the features of a face through the crystal. But whatever a princess was, it seemed not to be dangerous and strangely human. Now that they could understand each other’s language, the ‘princess’ sounded like a woman. Maybe that was just an illusion.

“Assuming you are not lying to me,” said the ‘princess’. It sounded like she was weighing each word carefully.

“Lying is a habit of weak minds,” Zil quoted Mar.

“Then we are here for the same purpose. That is strange. The priests told me that being chosen was a lonely Fate. The duty gets passed down from mother to daughter to be fulfilled when Fate calls.” The ‘princess’ sighed loudly.

Zil raised an eyebrow. That sounded oddly familiar. Mar had told her almost the same thing when Zil had whined at the wise woman, asking why somebody else couldn’t do the job. Had this ‘princess’ asked the same thing of those ‘priests’? Had she been just as disappointed to hear their answer?

“Wait! You’re human, aren’t you?” Zil blurted out the very first thing that popped into her mind.

The ‘princess’ hesitated for a moment before answering: “You thought I was not human?” She was speaking calmly but Zil could not help but feel accused and a little bit stupid. Still, how was she supposed to know there were people in these caves? Horned people, too! Besides…

“Well, you’re one to talk! You thought I was a spirit!”

“I apologise. I meant no offense. It is the first time I have seen a living person paler than a corpse.”

“Well, you don’t exactly look like a normal person either, what with the horns and everything!”  
\-----------------------------------------------

“Horns?” Dio asked, confused.

“Yeah, those things on your head!”

With one hand – for pulling her other hand off the crystal was no more possible than tearing herself into two halves by sheer force of will – she patted her head. What on earth was the pale one talking about? She did not have ... oh!

Dio laughed. “That is just my hair, silly!”

“You don’t shave your head?”

“No, why would I?” responded Dio, still laughing.

“Because it gets all sweaty and dusty! That is so gross!”

Dio felt slightly insulted, but mostly confused. Yes, she had noticed the pale one’s baldness, but she had assumed that that was just what spirits looked like.

“I suppose,” said Dio, “it makes sense to you. There is probably not a lot of water in these caves to wash with. But where I am from, we have plenty of water, so we do not need to shave our hair. We can just wash it every day, if we want to.”

“It’s still gross and dirty and I don’t know what the water in here has to do with anything. It’s not like I live here.”

“You do not?”

“You don’t either, do you?”

\-----------------------------------------------

For a moment, silence fell between the two. It was a moment too long for Zil. Had it not been for the calming presence of the crystal, she would have been going frantic from all the confusion. There were so many questions she wanted to ask but she had no idea where to start. Why didn’t this ‘princess’ say something already, so she could answer?

Finally, just as Zil was about to shout any old question that popped into her head just to break the silence, the ‘princess’ cleared her throat and said: “It seems we will be stuck here for a while. Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I am Princess Dio.”

For a moment Zil thought that ‘Princess’ was just part of her name, but the way she had said it before and the way she said it now reminded her of the way Mar would introduce herself, putting just that little bit of extra pride and authority into ‘Wise Woman’. Maybe it was a title that Princess Dio’s people gave the chosen one.

Her people – who were they anyway? Zil had travelled all the way to the Eastern Desert several times and in weeks and weeks of travelling she had never seen or heard of anyone who looked like Princess Dio. But there was nothing but the mountains to the west. People could not possibly be living up there! Those mountains defeated even the strongest of warriors. So there was only one possibility: People lived beyond those mountains. Strange people. People that weren’t like anyone Zil had ever met. Zil had never really thought about that possibility before. Nobody really discussed what was past those mountains.

“And what is your name?”

“Huh? Oh! Zil. Just Zil.”

“That is a very unusual name.”

“Nah, it’s ridiculously common. There are three other Zils even just in my village.”

“Your village – where is it?”

“Right near the forest outside the cave,” answered Zil and pointed eastward with her free hand.

\-----------------------------------------------

Through the crystal, Dio saw Zil raise her arm and point to the direction she had come from when they had first entered the crystal’s chamber.

Dio frowned. Could that passage curve back to the sunset side of the mountains and exit somewhere near a forest? But Dio had travelled with the priests and sometimes even with her parents to learn more about her father's land. She had seen some beautiful forests, but she vividly remembered being surprised by how similar all the people were. She most certainly would have remembered seeing someone like Zil, all pale and bald and speaking with the voice of a siren, so strange only the power of the crystal could make Dio understand her.

But Zil had to be from the sunset side of the mountains. Nobody could possibly live beyond the end of the world. Nothing existed past that mountain range, except for the kingdom of the sun, which was too hot for any human to endure! Everyone knew that! It just did not make sense!

Dio took a deep breath. She had to ask. She had to know.

“Zil?”

“Yes.”

“Is your village on the sunrise or sunset side of the mountain?”

At first, Zil did not respond.

“Please. Tell me.”

“It’s east of the mountains. The sunrise side, I guess, if that’s what you want to call it! That’s the other side of the mountains from where you live, right?”

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil expected some kind of answer from Princess Dio, but the only sound that came from the other side of the crystal was a sigh, then what might have been muffled sobs. Or was it laughter? She couldn’t tell, but she could see Princess Dio’s whole body shaking.

“Hey! Hey! Princess Dio! Everything okay over there?”

It took a moment for the princess to answer. When she did, she sounded like she had a bad cold: “I’m very tired. I would like to rest for a while.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Silence fell. Somewhere in the far distance, Zil could hear the echo of water dripping onto the cave floor. She sighed. Hopefully Princess Dio would get over whatever had shaken her so badly sooner rather than later. Zil had no idea how long they would have to stay here, but clearly the crystal was not letting them go anytime soon. She didn’t really want to get away from the crystal anyway, the crystal was nice. Hours of silence only punctuated by a regular drip – drip – drip in the background – less so. Zil started to wonder if some of those chosen in the past had merely been bored to insanity and had then been too embarrassed to admit it. The chamber was pretty boring, now that Zil knew Princess Dio was not a dangerous demon after all. It seemed to have gotten a bit brighter, though. She could see every pebble and crack in the far corners that had lain completely in shadow when she had first stepped into the chamber. But she couldn’t while away hours just counting pebbles.

Zil decided to try to sleep, even though she had to do it sitting, because there was no way she could take her hand off the crystal.

It took her a while to go to sleep, as she was used to sleeping in total darkness, except when the moon was particularly bright. When she finally fell asleep, she had strange, shapeless dreams full of bright, ever-changing colours and the shadows of places and people she had never seen in her life.

\-----------------------------------------------

On the other side of the crystal, Dio, too, had tried to go to sleep, but her mind would not let her rest. Every once in a while, the sobs she was trying so desperately to keep down bubbled to the surface and made her whole body tremble until she fought them back down. This was all wrong! There were no horrors in this cave. There was a second chosen one. There were people in the kingdom of the sun! Maybe the kingdom of the sun did not even exist. What else had the priests been wrong about?   
Did Fate exist? Why was she even sitting in this cave?

Eventually, Dio fell asleep – or maybe she had fainted from sheer despair. One second she was trying to fight back tears and the deafening voices of doubt in her mind, the next second she opened her bleary eyes as an unfamiliar smell hit her nose.

“What is that?” she whispered.

“Oh, you’re up? It’s food. Cured deer. I was hungry. Want to have some?”

“It has a very strong fragrance.”

“Huh? Oh, you mean it smells? Yeah, that’s just the seasoning we used. It stinks a bit, but it’s delicious. Try it! You must be starving.”

“I have food, too.”

A piece of meat wrapped in some cloth landed at Dio’s feet.

“My brother would never speak to me again if he knew I’d met someone in here and not offered them any of his cooking.”

So Zil had a brother? And he was the one who cooked for her? That was odd! What kind of family did the other woman come from anyway? Were they royalty, too? She did not seem like royalty. There were so many questions Dio did not know which to ask first.

Instead she unwrapped the meat, sniffed it, swallowed her disgust and took a small bite.

Zil had not lied, it was delicious. Juicy, savoury and – strangely enough - a little bit tangy. In no time at all, Dio had eaten the rest of it. Her mother would have been scandalised by her lack of table manners, but Zil did not seem to mind.

“So, how was it?”

“It was exquisite.”

“And...”

“Thank you, that was really kind of you,” said Dio quickly to avoid seeming rude, but the annoyed sigh from the other side of the crystal made it seem like Zil was waiting for something entirely different.

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil waited for a few minutes for Princess Dio to push her own food around the crystal, but the princess did not oblige and she didn’t even apologise.

“So what’s gotten into you then?” Zil burst out angrily.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You said you had food of your own, didn’t you?” How bloody rude was it to accept someone’s food and not offer them even a bite in return? Who did she think she was?

“Yes, I do. Wait, did you want some?”

“What do you think?”

“I ... did not realise you were still hungry.”

“You know you’re no better than me, right? Clearly the crystal wants us both, so just because your people gave you a title, that doesn’t mean you can act like you’re superior to me, because – Sweet Mother of Life, she knows – you are not!”

“I never claimed to be better than you! Excuse me, but what did I do to cause offence, I do not understand!”

Zil was fuming. “Yeah, right, wet bear droppings you don’t,” she shouted. “Don’t act all innocent like you somehow didn’t know not to be a selfish jerk. Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?”

“No.”

“So don’t you dare ... wait. What?”

The moment Zil heard Princess Dio’s answer – really heard it – she felt like someone had just taken a needle and deflated her like a pig bladder ball.

“They didn’t?”

“I was taught by the priests. But our people do not have that rule, I have never heard of it, I did not know. I am sorry.”

“Wow, seriously? That’s weird.” How did their villages even work if people just took without giving?

“You can have some of my food, of course.” A package wrapped in a strange fabric slid over to Zil’s side of the crystal. It was smoother than anything Zil had ever touched, let alone used to wrap food in, and decorated with symbols that meant nothing to her, but she knew beautiful embroidery when she saw it. Very carefully Zil unwrapped the package. What she found inside looked like bread, but smelled a lot sweeter.

On the other side of the crystal, Princess Dio was still repeatedly assuring her that she had meant no offence, as Zil took a big bite out of the unfamiliar meal. Her lips puckered. She looked wildly around for her own bag, found it, grabbed a water skin and took a giant swig.

“Wow, you smothered that in honey!”

“You do not like it?”

“Didn’t say that, it’s just sweeter than I’m used to.” Zil wondered how anyone could eat that whole thing without getting queasy when even a single bite of it was making her wish she hadn’t insisted on chiding Princess Dio for her bad manners after all. To change the topic, she quickly added: “So how come you weren’t taught by your parents?”

“Oh, well ...” Princess Dio sounded a little sad.

Zil immediately regretted asking. What if Princess Dio was an orphan? But she hadn’t mentioned an aunt or uncle either, so maybe she just didn’t have any family at all. Maybe these “priests” were appointed guardians?

“It is traditional for royal children to be taught by the priesthood. I suppose it is so we learn from the wisest of people, even if our parents are busy reigning.”

“Reigning?”

“Well, yeah, I’m the Princess, so they are the King and Queen.” Whatever Princess Dio was trying to convey, her tone made it seem like she thought Zil was dumb for not understanding.

“You realise I don’t really know what any of that means, don’t you?”

“You do not have kings where you come from?”

“What are kings?”

“You know. Rulers. The people who are in charge.”

“In charge of what?”

“What do you mean, in charge of what?”

“Well, our village’s wise woman is in charge of worship and leading prayer, my eldest uncle is in charge of the hunt, the mother of the family living just next to us is in charge of organising the fields, the man in charge of healing the sick lives right near the well and...”

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio did not want to risk upsetting Zil again by interrupting her, so she let her go on for a while, but when Zil stopped for a long breath, she interjected: “But you must have a ruler! Someone who’s just in charge! Of everything!”

“What? Someone who’s good at everything? How does that even work?”

Dio remembered all the times she had been shouted at by the priests tutoring her for mumbling or slouching as a child, she remembered her mother’s bleeding fingers and her cursing and throwing pieces of failed embroidery right across the room. She remembered the face of her father when he had returned from a battle so brutal that only his ally’s help had wrenched victory from the jaws of defeat, his tears at having lost most of his army, his cry of “Fate be damned, they needed a better leader.”

“No, we are not good at everything,” she finally answered.

“Didn’t think so. You’d have to be the Mother of Life herself.”

Dio opened her mouth to ask what Zil was talking about, but she had moved on to more questions so fast that Dio could not get a single word in: “So how come your family rules your people then? Is it because you’re chosen? Because my people don’t do that, you see. The only thing my mum’s in charge of is a hunting party in the village where my grandmother lives. And my father couldn’t make a dog listen to him. We used to mess with him so much when we were kids. Lo – my little brother – used to put frogs in dad’s bed and ...” Zil paused. “I’m rambling, aren’t I? Sorry. So, how come your family’s in charge then?”

“I do not think it has anything to do with us being chosen. It is just the way it is. We all have roles in life. Some are fated to be servants and others to be rulers. Our family has always ruled.”

“Your people are odd.”

“Yes, you have said,” Dio said, slightly annoyed. Here was this bald woman with skin pale as a corpse who was telling her of mothers, fathers, brothers, entire villages in a place where supposedly no human being could even survive. Zil should not even exist and yet Dio and her family were the strange ones? What was more, she kept mentioning things that Dio could barely make sense of. Dio had to ask: “So who is that Mother of Life you keep mentioning?”

\-----------------------------------------------

Zil’s mouth fell open. “You have got to be joking.”

“I never joke with strangers.”

“But you’ve got to know the Mother of Life! Creator of this world! Protector of all that grows!”

“No.”

“But who do you think created all this?” Zil used her free arm to gesture at her surroundings.

“All what?”

“Everything. The world. This cave. Us. The crystal! Who do you think put this crystal here?”

“Fate.”

It was so absurd, Zil burst out laughing. “Fate? You mean we’re all here by accident. ‘Woops, there goes a human.’”

Nothing but silence came from the other side of the crystal.

“I mean, really, you can’t be serious. If it’s all just a matter of chance, then how are we even here? How are there even chosen ones? I mean, who chose them, if it’s all just fate. It’s just silly!”

Zil was still trying to stifle her giggles at the ridiculousness of it all, when she suddenly heard a loud sob from the other side of the crystal.

“Princess Dio? Is everything okay over there? Princess?”

Dio’s next words burst out of her mouth accompanied by so much sobbing and venom that it took Zil a moment to make out what the other woman was saying: “That is not what Fate is at all and you are horrible. Just horrible.”

“Oh, come on. I was just teasing.”

But the only response Zil got was more sobbing. She tried a few more times, but when the sounds on the other side of the crystal subsided, she decided Princess Dio must have gone to sleep and she had better try to do the same. She was starting to feel strangely tired anyway.

\-----------------------------------------------

On the other side of the crystal, Dio had not, in fact, gone to sleep, even though her eyelids were starting to droop. She wanted to, but there were too many thoughts churning in her head. A woman who, for all intents and purposes, should not exist was telling her that the world and everything in it had been created by a strange being, a mother, and that belief in Fate was not just false but utterly laughable. Was this some kind of test she had to pass? Maybe Zil was not real, maybe she was just an image planted in her mind to confuse her. But planted by whom? Dio had no answers. The priests had never given her any. She just knew that her Fate as a chosen one had been revealed to them, but not why. She did not know what the crystal was for, except that if she did not give it her life force, the world would end. 

But why was it here? Why? Zil on the other hand seemed to have all the answers – or at least seemed to believe she did. But Zil had never heard of Fate or of priests, so how could any of the answers have been revealed to her. Dio tried to remember anything that the priests might have told her that would explain this, but there was nothing, not the tiniest morsel, not a second’s aside. None of this made any sense at all!

Her thoughts circled around and around for so long that Dio completely forgot where she was. When she heard someone loudly clearing their throat and looked up from her lap, the bright light from the crystal was so blinding that she had to close her eyes and look away.

“So, then what is Fate?”

Dio got a handkerchief out of her bag and wiped her nose, then answered: “If you just want to make fun of me and my people again, you can...” She could think of several things that Zil could go do, but all of them would have made her etiquette teacher faint dead away, so she left it at “You can forget about it.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It just seemed strange to me, but I really want to know. Honest.”

Dio looked through the crystal at the other woman. She was not sure but it seemed Zil was staring right back at her and her voice had truly sounded quite eager.

“I have never had to explain Fate to anyone,” Dio said. “Where I am from everyone just knows.”

“Try,” said Zil and then added as an afterthought: “Please?”

“Fate is an incredibly powerful force. It holds the world together. It gives everything and everyone its place in the world and in life.”

“And you pray to this force so it gives you a better place in life?”

Dio frowned. “No, of course not. Fate cannot be changed by humans.”

“So the moment you’re born you’re just stuck doing whatever it is Fate wants you to do until you die? You don’t get a choice? That just seems cruel.”

“Of course you get a choice,” said Dio, swallowing down the irritation that was rising deep in her stomach again. After all, Zil did not know any better. “But if you do not find the place in life decreed for you by Fate, horrible things can happen, depending on how important that place is. At the very least you are never going to be happy until you find it. That is why our priests know rituals to find out people’s Fate.”

“Oh, okay, I guess that makes more sense. So you came down here because it is your true Fate, then?”

“Well, yes. Why did you come down here then?”

“Because it’s my job, I suppose.”

“But if you do not know about Fate...” Dio let her sentence trail off.

\-----------------------------------------------

“Ah, that’s pretty easy, actually,” said Zil. “There’s this story we have about the Mother of Life and the very first humans. I could tell you if you want to hear it, but I’m not a very good storyteller.”

Zil remembered the last time she had heard the story told by Lo in the company of the entire village just before her parents had left to take care of their elderly grandmother. He had done it so well Mar had nodded her head so vigorously throughout that she had reminded Zil of a hinged doll. Zil on the other hand had never been able to learn the words you were supposed to say, let alone the tone you were supposed to say them in, no matter how hard she tried. Lo would have made a better chosen one than her.

“I want to hear it,” said Princess Dio. “Maybe it will help me understand all of this.”

“That’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on me, you know.”

“Please just tell me.”

“Alright then, but don’t expect too much.” Zil cleared her throat and started speaking in the best imitation of Mar she could muster: “When the world was brand-new, the Mother of Life walked through the land inspecting her creation. She walked through a forest where she saw the bees busily collecting pollen, the fish eating all the dirt from the bottoms of streams and the bears taking care of their young so they would grow up big and strong and rule the forest as she had ordered them to do when she had first created them. But when she left the forest, she came upon a human village where the people were idle and putting neither their body nor their minds to work. She said to the villagers ‘Did I not give you the strongest minds of all my creations, so you would work hard and improve yourselves, yet here you are lazing around, wasting your days’.

But the villagers did not care for their Mother’s words and refused to listen to her. So the Mother of Life got angry and said...”

Zil paused. This was supposed to be the most dramatic part of the story, but it was right at this point that words always failed her.

“What did she say?” asked Princess Dio excitedly.

“Hm, well, she said ‘If you will not grow and learn, then I will make you.’ In her anger she stomped on the ground. With a loud thunderous noise a mountain rose behind her and a crack opened beneath her feet and spread around the world. Then she picked up a handful of dirt from the ground and in her hands a crystal grew and absorbed the light of the sun, the moon and the stars. The villagers started screaming and begging for the light to return. And the Mother of Life said ‘One of your number will enter the mountain, face their fears and open their mind to the crystal. If it judges you worthy, it will give you some of my knowledge in return. But if you are not worthy, this world will crack at its seams.”

“That is harsh.”

“Yes, but fair.”

“So did someone enter the mountain?”

“Well, yes, we wouldn’t be here right now if they hadn’t. So everyone thought that it would be one of the hunters or warriors who’d go, right? But a few hours later they noticed that one of the children of the village, a little girl, had disappeared. Several days later she reappeared, the knowledge of the Mother of Life shining from her eyes, and with her the light returned to the world. And the Mother of Life appeared before them and said ‘You have proven yourselves worthy, but do not return to being idle. When I see fit to test you again, I will send you a sign.’” Zil breathed a sigh of relief, then, quickly and somewhat lamely added: “And – well, here we are.”

“That is a very strange story. Is that really what your people believe?”

“Sure. I’m still waiting for the wave of knowledge that’s supposed to come over us, though. Don’t know about you, but I feel as clueless as before.” A yawn tore open Zil’s mouth. She had barely finished her story when her eyelids started to feel impossibly heavy. “And really, really tired. Sweet Mother of Life, what is it about the air down here? I only just woke up!”

“I do not think it is the air,” said Princess Dio. “I think it is the crystal taking our life force and making us tired.”

“Oh, is that what you’ve been told it does?”

Dio did not answer. Instead, she, too, yawned and said: “I would like to rest a while.”

Zil shrugged. “Sure. Let’s.” She had barely said it when her eyes closed.

\-----------------------------------------------

Dio had no idea how long she had slept, but when she awoke, her body felt heavier than it ever had before. She could barely even lift her eyelids.

On the other side of the crystal, she could hear Zil stirring. When Dio heard Zil’s voice, she first thought that the other woman was just not as affected by the force that was draining her, but then she realised she was hearing Zil’s voice through the crystal.

“This is weird,” Zil said. “Princess Dio, can you hear me?”

Dio tried to answer “Yes” but her mouth would not open. Nevertheless, she could hear her own voice in her head and it sounded very different from the usual voice of her thoughts.

“Maybe you were right about the thing you said yesterday, about how the crystal takes our life force?”

“I did tell you so.”

“I just said you did, didn’t I? How long do you think this is going to last?”

“I do not know. I am not even sure how long we have been in here. Maybe it will kill us.”

“Only if we’re not worthy! The Mother of Life wouldn’t harm us if we’re worthy. Have you been lazing around a lot?”

“No, of course not.” Dio had never ‘lazed around’ in her entire life. Her time was strictly regimented by the priests. She had her regal duties and her studies to attend to. “Have you?”

“No.”

For a moment, all Dio could hear – was she really hearing it? How was that possible? – was a strange warmth. She would not have been able to describe it, even with all the long, rare words she had been made to study as a child.

Then she heard a triumphant shout so loud it made her flinch.

“Sweet Mother of Life, I’ve just realised something.”

“What?”

“We’re already being given the knowledge of the Mother of Life! She knows about you people on the other side of the mountain and she wanted us to learn about you. That’s why she sent me in here! It’s so I can return to my village and tell everyone about you and we can all go through this tunnel and visit each other’s towns and learn from each other! Learning and growing is what this is all about! We’re supposed to learn from each other! Now it all makes sense!”

Dio thought about a crowd of bald, pale people in strange clothing pushing through the tunnel to see her home on the other side. She thought of her own people’s reaction.

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘No’?”

“You must not! You looked like a ghost to me when I first saw you. It was only through the crystal that I realised you were human like me. It was only through the crystal that we could understand each other. My people – they would not understand. They would be afraid. They might even kill you.”

“You could warn them! You could tell them about us!”

“They would never believe me. The priests say that there is no life beyond the mountains! Nobody ever considers that they could be wrong. They would think I had gone mad in the cave!”

“Can’t you try?”

“No. No, I cannot. I cannot. Please do not ask me to.”

Zil did not ask again. Instead, Dio heard a voice much louder than Zil’s. It screamed, making Dio’s ears ring. She could not make out any words, but she understood that she had failed in whatever her true duty was. She could not breathe, could not move. The strange warmth disappeared. Dio knew she was going to die.

And then she opened her eyes to the soft shimmer of the sun’s beams. Her aching muscles made her realise that she was still alive. Slowly, very slowly she got up and blinked at the light. She was just steps away from the entrance of the cave. Turning around, she realised she was alone.

“Zil?”

Only her own echo answered her. Dio turned away from the tunnel entrance and stumbled deeper into the cave. She had to find Zil. She had to make sure she had not dreamt it all, had not gone mad, that Zil and the people beyond the mountains were really, truly real. She had barely made her legs work well enough to walk a handful of steps when she crashed, face first into an invisible barrier. She pushed against thin air with her hands – it would not go past whatever was keeping her back.   
Dio felt for a hole in the barrier, but there none. She punched, she kicked, she screamed Zil’s name, she scratched at the barrier until her fingers bled. She could not go back to her home, knowing that the priests were wrong, knowing that there was more beyond the mountains, people with different bodies and different minds. But the barrier would not give.

Finally, Dio collapsed in front of the barrier, sobbing.

\-----------------------------------------------

When Zil emerged from the mountain, she had barely limped a metre when she was pulled into a tight hug.

“Oh Sweet Mother of Life, you made it. You made it. Oh Mother, you made it.”

“I love you too, Lo,” gasped Zil, “but I still need to breathe, you know.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Lo stepped back and looked his sister up and down: “You look exhausted.”

“I am exhausted.”

“I’ll cook for you when we get home. Mum and Dad are here! Wise Woman Mar sent for them and they arrived just a couple of hours ago. Wise Woman Mar’s with them now, trying to calm them down. She said she saw a vision that you’d return soon. That’s why I’m here.”

Zil smiled. She had not seen Lo this cheerful in a while.

“So, how was it?”

She had expected that question. Had the roles been reversed, she would have asked the same and she knew exactly what to respond: “I don’t think I can explain. I don’t have the words. But I made it. I proved myself and our people worthy. That’s what matters.”

She could have told him about Princess Dio, about the people beyond the mountains, about the crystal and the barrier and the voice she had heard inside her head telling her that the world was not ready yet. But there was something inside of her telling her she had better keep all of it to herself and let the Mother of Life’s next chosen one figure it out on their own when their time came. Whenever that may be.


End file.
